Oceans of inequity: How technology may divide the last commons

For most of the human history, the oceans represented something larger than any power could control. It was unfathomable and beyond conquest—wild, uncontained, and governed by forces of nature rather than by human ambitions. Even empires at their peak of power respected the limits of oceanic dominance. Naval strength was visible, cumbersome, and limited. Ships were slow, submarines were fragile. Surveillance was at best patchy and control of oceans often temporary.
This has begun to change. We are now living through a quiet but unprecedented transformation of the oceanic order. A convergence of deep technologies—artificial intelligence, quantum computing, autonomous vehicles, and surveillance infrastructure, is rapidly dividing the seas between those who can see, understand, and operate in the deep, and those who cannot. The world’s oceans, long imagined as a shared commons, are at the risk of becoming increasingly privately controlled, digitally fenced, and functionally invisible to most nations. This may not be a theoretical concern for the future. It is an emerging reality, one that needs more attention now than ever before.
In the past, even the most technologically advanced powers could only operate at limited depths. Today, nations like the United States and China have deployed deep-sea submersibles to the hadal zone—depths exceeding 6,000 meters. The Chinese research vessel Fendouzhe reached nearly 11,000 meters in the Mariana Trench. These capabilities are no longer just about exploration. They involve data collection, surveillance, and mapping of the seabed for both commercial and strategic purposes. Developing countries, by contrast, often lack the technology to explore even 500 meters below the surface with any precision, leave alone 10,000 meters. Only a very few countries can manufacture deep sea submersibles that can reach hadal zone depth of over 6000 meters such as USA, China, Japan, Russia, EU and France. Developing countries like India are planning submersibles that can reach depths of 6000 meters.

The contrast between navigating ocean depths and viewing lofty peaks could not be starker: any one in developing country can see Mount Everest with the naked eyes but none can see the ocean trenches within their own Exclusive Economic Zone. For instance, many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) may rely on foreign vessels to map their waters, lacking even basic surveillance infrastructure. This dependency undermines their ability to regulate resource extraction or respond to incursions in real-time. The world is rapidly dividing not just between rich and poor nations, but between those who can see and shape oceans and those who cannot. Increasingly, it reflects a divide between technologically equipped and technologically dependant.
The divide does not end with depth. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already entered undersea warfare. AI enables real-time decision-making in autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), dynamic route planning to avoid detection, and swarm coordination for naval drones, mimicking natural formations like flocks of birds, enabling multiple drones to work as a team for tasks like surveillance, reconnaissance, and coordinated strikes. These are not merely speculative developments; prototypes already exist. The US Navy’s Orca submarine and DARPA’s Sea Hunter are autonomous platforms with combat capabilities. China is developing AI-powered naval swarms for surveillance and control in the South China Sea. AI is already being incorporated into sixth-generation fighter programs and next-gen surveillance systems. Stealth, once a matter of hull shape and noise suppression, is becoming algorithmic. Future platforms may adapt in real-time to their surroundings, mimicking biological signals or altering thermal and acoustic signatures to blend into their environment. In this context, conventional submarines—especially those without advanced AI—can become sitting ducks and liabilities.

Here lies one of the most troubling future risks: AI-powered disinformation. It can be directed not only at humans, but also machines. Imagine a scenario where an adversary feeds false depth or location data to a conventional submarine. The sub descends, believing it to be safe, only to cross its pressure threshold and collapse. The World may discuss whether it was an accident or a systems error or an intentional data manipulation designed to leave no trace. This may not only be a fantasy. It is the logic of the invisible technological superiority.

Deep sea surveillance is another area where technological gaps may accentuate inequities. Modern undersea surveillance systems, like China’s “Underwater Great Wall” or U.S. acoustic arrays, are beginning to turn ocean geography into persistent data streams. Control is no longer about presence; it is about perception. Those who can perceive the ocean comprehensively can shape its use, restrict access, and disable adversaries, without a single shot being fired. While it is possible to argue that surveillance is not the same thing as control, but this ignores centuries of history. Surveillance often precedes power. The Cold War was fought as much through satellites as through submarines. Today, the power to monitor an ocean in real-time—down to vessel movement, cable vibration, and even biomass migration—is an asset of staggering strategic importance.

Further ahead into future, the advent of quantum computing and quantum internet may completely alter the balance of ocean governance. Quantum computers can perform certain complex calculations exponentially faster than classical ones, opening doors to solving problems that are currently beyond traditional computing capabilities. For sake of comparison, traditional binary computers are like basic calculators, great for handling straightforward arithmetic and logical operations, and quantum computers in comparison, are like advanced graphing calculators with features to tackle complex equations, plot functions, and manage multidimensional problems.

Both serve as computation tools, but quantum computers venture into realms unreachable by classical ones, akin to solving problems that go beyond simple calculations. Quantum systems could decrypt today’s strongest encryption, render communication protocols obsolete, and allow un-hackable transmission of commands between satellites and undersea platforms. While these technologies are still maturing, the gap between nations with quantum roadmaps and those without may be widening rapidly. Those outside the loop will be operating blindly and communicating in the open, much like the postcards of yesteryears. But this may be years or decades away.

In parallel, deep-sea mining and genetic bioprospecting are turning ocean biodiversity and geology into new arenas of privatization. Companies backed by major powers are mapping and claiming zones of rare-earth deposits, polymetallic nodules, and extremophile genes—often ahead of any global regulatory clarity. A recent study by the Stockholm Resilience Centre reports 3,258 patent filing related to over 25,682 sequences from 1,092 marine species predominantly by firms like BASF, IFF, and DuPont. This raises concerns about equitable access and the ecological fallout, as nations most affected by exploitation may not benefit economically.

In this unfolding reality, the danger is not open warfare—it is silent exclusion. A world in which most states may not know what is happening under their waters. A world where unexplained accidents disable their fleets. Where their cables are tapped, their resources extracted, their data harvested—and they are told nothing. It will not be an occupation. It will be a quiet exclusion.

Many may acknowledge that ocean inequity is real and growing—technologically, economically, and legally. Multilateral institutions must catch up. Current treaties like UNCLOS belong to an era when such technological disparity was unimaginable. New protocols are need of the hour for transparency, access, and responsible deployment of AI and quantum systems in the marine domain. Developing nations must invest in collective ocean research, shared data infrastructure, a global AI ocean governance and ethical framework, and pooled deep-sea surveillance and submersible capabilities.

Oceans are not just spaces of military concern or commercial extraction. They are ecological lifelines, cultural identities, and planetary stabilizers. If they are allowed to be carved up by invisible walls of technology, we may find that the last great commons of Earth have been lost—not to war, but to neglect. The irony is that we might not even know it happened, buried in deep oceans, a quiet disappearance of a shared legacy beyond our notice.